Speedrun
A speedrun is a playthrough of a level, a world or the entire game as fast as possible. Cat Bird has 100 different speedrunning categories listed on speedrun.com , of which 60 are normal ILs, 30 are crown ILs, 4 are Any% of a World, 4 are All Crowns of a World and 2 are All Worlds (Any% and 100%). "That's a lot of categories! I want to start speedrunning Cat Bird but I don't know how and where to start! Am I even good enough to be a speedrunner?" Don't worry. No one expects you to submit a world record run. You probably have used the time trials to get the achievements or just to try playing fast. You probably still use strats you found yourself (not bad necessarily) or casual strats (everyone first plays casually, so...). Look at your time trials page for a world you like (maybe Marda, it's the most run world). What time is the "best time"? Is it higher than 5:30 (for Marda, 6:45 for Grasi and Winda and 5:45 for Zipsa [[Any%]])? Congrats, just take a screenshot and submit it to speedrun.com (you'll need a speedrun.com account tho). Your time is slow enough to not require video proof (Don't see this as an insult, my first submission was a 5:33). "But the World Record is nearly a minute faster than I am, I'll never even get close!" Like I said, no one expects you to get a world record right when starting to speedrun. Set yourself a goal time that you want to reach next and watch runs with that time (the world record uses strategies far too hard fo beginners), which is why Marda with its many runs is so good to run. Join the discord for tips from experienced runners. No matter where you start, with no run done yet or some runs over 5:30 already done, there will be tips from other runners to help you getting better times. You can also ask there for tips to record (with sound), what you'll have to do when your runs become better. And then, just... run the game. Try improving your basic movement, it changes a lot (better cycles and movement), learn new strategies, one after another. Don't be shy of just improving by a few seconds, it's an improvement after all. It won't take long for you to get into 5:10 territory and lower. Sub5 Marda won't seem so hard anymore! Of course you can also try All Crowns (a bit longer than Any%, but new strategies for nearly every level with crown) or All Worlds Any% or 100%. Maybe you'll like one of these categories more than the one you started with! Have fun! "But what about all those 'ILs' you spoke of?" Oh, you mean the 90 different ILs? They are a level played through as fast as possible, but often with even harder strategies than World runs. This leads to the difference between a World run and a segmented run. ILs are rarely played, since they only involve a single level, played a lot. Most ILs only have 3-4 submissions, which doesn't mean they are easy to beat. At the moment (24.8.19), only three people hold untied IL WRs: ScieCode, Th3on3C and TheHSbF6Leo (me). (Tied WRs are held by ScieCode, Th3on3C, TheHSbF6Leo, SaturnRunsGames, Maxaraxa and NefariousMonkey) I'd recommend sticking to the "full game categories". I submitted a run, but it isn't on the leaderboards! Relax. Runs need to be verified first by a moderator (currently ScieCode, Oxknifer and MrUppercaseT) This can take a while. Usually IGT timed runs (Worlds as Any% or All Crowns) are verified faster than RTA timed runs (All Worlds and ILs), which need to be retimed. Just wait a bit, they'll be verified eventually. Annoy the moderators a bit on discord(this is a joke, don't do this) to verify your run :) Of course you are not the only one submitting runs, you know... Speedrunning Strategies There are a lot of strategies in cat bird speedrunning, from simple stuff as just being fast to pixel/frame perfect strategies too hard for a full world. There are tutorials, mainly for marda, like this one by ScieCode and every level page has some speedrunning tips added.